


i'm begging you to keep on haunting me

by CreepE



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Small Town, Bipolar Disorder, Dark, Detectives, M/M, Missing Persons, Underage Drug Use, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-14 22:44:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8031847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CreepE/pseuds/CreepE
Summary: The case seems cut and dry at first; there's conclusive evidence, a motive, and plenty of witnesses who saw the two together that night. But as Asuma and Sasori investigate further, they begin uncovering things that go much deeper than a simple murder, and they begin questioning everything they thought they knew. What really happened the night of the party? Is Sasuke Uchiha the culprit? If not, why does it seem like he's hiding so much?
And, most important of all, is Naruto Uzumaki really dead?





	i'm begging you to keep on haunting me

**Author's Note:**

> This idea wouldn't leave me alone, so I scribbled it out to continue a long way down the road. I still want to finish my other fic first, but I might write a chapter a month or something. I have vague ideas of what's going to happen, but basically what you need to know is that it's one of those generic whodunnit fics, featuring Good Cop Family Man!Asuma, Grumpy Cop with a Dark Past!Sasori, and a missing, attractive blonde. I won't give spoilers, but there will probably be a ton of triggering material in this fic (and things will get very dark) so if you're triggered by like... anything... probably not a good idea. It'll flash all around in the timeline since there are interviews, but since I'm not a fan of writing in first person the 'interviews' will be told in third person past tense. 
> 
> This is the one and only A/N I'm making for this fic since I know I'd be too tempted to spoil things, but I'll answer (non-spoilery) questions and comments. "Is Naruto dead?" is spoilery, for example, so no I'm not answering that one. ;) 
> 
> Title from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjyGkvNUtRU

{Saudade- _a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return_ }

 

**One Day After**

**Police Station, Widow’s Creek**

**11:23 am**

 

Asuma has to take a deep breath before entering the room. It’s not like he hasn’t done something like this before—there have been a couple of cases that devastated the tiny town he’s the Deputy Sheriff in—but there’s something about this one that’s a lot more personal. Maybe because it involves the sons of the Sheriff and the Mayor, two boys his godson sometimes mentions. Maybe it’s because he’s always been fond of the surly raven-haired boy who slinks in with lunch for his father sometimes and chats up whoever’s in the office. Or maybe it’s just because he wants to believe the best in others, and what’s happened has settled a dark cloud on his beliefs.

Opening the door with one hand, his other full with coffee and files, he elbows his way into the room and pauses to regard the boy whose head hangs low over the rough, stained table, eyes dark with exhaustion.

“Sasuke,” Asuma greets, his voice perhaps a hint too gentle for what’s to come. Sasuke raises his head, and for a second hope flickers in the back of his eyes.

“Anything?” he asks, his voice strained with the desire to hear something, anything about the situation. Asuma sighs heavily, wishing for the hundredth time that policy hadn’t changed to disallow smoking in the interrogation room. He sets the coffee on the table and slides it over to Sasuke, then drags his own chair across the floor with a loud scrape, settling into it and setting his files on the table.

“I’m afraid not. It’s only been a few hours, though, so—”

“Don’t bullshit me,” Sasuke snaps, the light dying from his eyes. “I know how these things work, Asuma. The first forty-eight hours are crucial. After that…”

Sasuke trails off, then glares resentfully at scratched hands. With a jingle, his handcuffs clinking against each other, he reaches out to grab the coffee Asuma proffered and brings it to his lips, downing the bitter brew in a few gulps. Setting it down again, he makes an expansive gesture, his voice laced with sarcasm as he speaks.

“Well, get on with it. Ask me your questions, waste your goddamn time on _me_ , when _he’s_ still out there, doing who the fuck knows what with—”

“Sasuke,” Asuma warns, as Sasuke half stands, looks desperate and half crazy as he slams his hands repeatedly against the table.

“It wasn’t me! I don’t know who it was, but you need to be out there looking for him!”

“Calm down, son,” Asuma says gently, reaching out to put a restraining hand on Sasuke’s arm. Sasuke’s lips curl into a grimace, but he sinks back into his chair, tilting his head down until it rests against the table’s surface. Asuma doesn’t want to believe that Sasuke had anything to do with the disappearance, but the evidence is overwhelming. With a small sigh, Asuma reaches out and opens the file in front of him.

“Let’s go over the facts. Last night, at approximately nineteen hundred hours—that’s seven pm—you went to a party with Naruto Uzumaki.”

“Enlightening,” Sasuke growls. Asuma studiously ignores him, forging on.

“At twenty-three hundred hours—that’s eleven pm—you and Naruto were seen leaving the party together, heading into the nearby forest. That was the last anyone saw of you until nine this morning, when Sakura Haruno found you stumbling out of the same woods, covered in blood we’ve confirmed to be Naruto’s.”

Sasuke looks up and visibly pales, pressing his hands together and saying nothing.

“All attempts to contact Naruto have failed, and we found a scene with signs of a scuffle and blood a little ways into the same forest you and Naruto were last seen heading into. From what we’ve found, the only other DNA at the scene appears to be yours. Samples of blood and—”

Asuma pauses, wondering how to frame it delicately, but Sasuke waves a dismissive hand, already impatient with how slowly things are progressing.

“Samples of blood and semen from the two of you were found at the scene. You have wounds on your hands and one of them still had a fragment of Naruto’s nail embedded in it. Is there anything else you’d like to add?”

“No,” Sasuke whispers hoarsely, trying to cross his arms and letting out a curse under his breath when his handcuffs restrict the motion.

“Very well. Then, before we go any further, I need you to give me _something,_ Sasuke. _Anything_. Try and help me understand what led to these circumstances, otherwise I can’t see any way we’ll keep looking when half the station’s convinced we have the perp right here.”

“Where do I even start?” Sasuke asks quietly, and the lost, sorrowful look on his face makes him much younger than his seventeen years. Asuma folds his hands over pictures of the scene, where enough blood to suggest the fact that Naruto Uzumaki may not be living anymore is soaked into the ground.

“Start with the party,” Asuma offers, and for a second there’s a quick flash of guilt in Sasuke’s eyes that makes Asuma’s narrow. It’s gone before he can be sure he saw it, but he files the guilt away for later. Even if Asuma isn’t a hundred percent sure Sasuke’s guilty, he gets the feeling the young Uchiha is hiding something.

“The party,” Sasuke mutters, his eyes growing distant. “Naruto was really excited about it.”


End file.
